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Investing in hedge funds can bring large profits, but it’s not for everybody, since hedge funds are available only for high-net-worth individuals. They generate significant returns for investors to justify their large fees and they allocate a lot of time and employ a complex analysis to determine the best stocks to invest in. A particularly interesting group of stocks that hedge funds like is the small-caps. The huge amount of capital does not allow hedge funds to invest a lot in small-caps, but our research showed that their most popular small-cap ideas are less efficiently priced and generate stronger returns than their large- and mega-cap picks and the broader market. That is why we follow the hedge fund activity in the small-cap space.

Is Independent Bank Corp (NASDAQ:INDB) a bargain? Investors who are in the know are taking a bullish view. The number of bullish hedge fund bets inched up by 3 in recent months. INDB was in an 8 hedge funds’ portfolios at the end of the third quarter of 2015. There were 5 hedge funds in our database with INDB holdings at the end of the previous quarter. The level and the change in hedge fund popularity aren’t the only variables you need to analyze to decipher hedge funds’ perspectives. A stock may witness a boost in popularity but it may still be less popular than similarly priced stocks. That’s why at the end of this article we will examine companies such as WesBanco, Inc. (NASDAQ:WSBC), MedAssets, Inc. (NASDAQ:MDAS), and Tumi Holdings Inc (NYSE:TUMI) to gather more data points.

In the financial world there are dozens of formulas shareholders can use to grade publicly traded companies. A pair of the most useful formulas are hedge fund and insider trading signals. Our experts have shown that, historically, those who follow the top picks of the top hedge fund managers can trounce the S&P 500 by a very impressive amount (see the details here).

With all of this in mind, let’s take a peek at the latest action surrounding Independent Bank Corp (NASDAQ:INDB).

Hedge fund activity in Independent Bank Corp (NASDAQ:INDB)

At the end of the third quarter, a total of an 8 of the hedge funds tracked by Insider Monkey held long positions in this stock, a change of 60% from the previous quarter. With the smart money’s positions undergoing their usual ebb and flow, there exists a select group of key hedge fund managers who were boosting their stakes considerably (or already accumulated large positions).

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Bernard Horn’s Polaris Capital Management has the biggest position in Independent Bank Corp (NASDAQ:INDB), worth close to $15.1 million, comprising 1.8% of its total 13F portfolio. Sitting at the No. 2 spot is Renaissance Technologies, holding a $5.5 million position; the fund has less than 0.1%% of its 13F portfolio invested in the stock. Some other peers that are bullish consist of Cliff Asness’s AQR Capital Management and John Overdeck and David Siegel’s Two Sigma Advisors.